All instruments needed for politics in India controlled by BJP, RSS: Rahul Gandhi in California

Narrating the political scenario in India, he said people in India are threatened and agencies are used on them. “So, we were also finding that it had become difficult to act politically and that’s why we decided to walk from Southern most tip of India to Srinagar.”

He went on to explain how the Congress came up with the line “Nafrat ki bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan kholi (opened a shop of love in the market of hatred). “When we started, I thought let’s see what happens. After 5 or 6 days, we realised that actually walking 1,000 km was not an easy thing. And I had an old knee injury that started to act up. So I said now I am in real trouble because there’s no choice, one has to walk and I am having quite a lot of pain. Then quite a surprising thing happened.”

He said after walking 25 km every day for three weeks, one afternoon he suddenly realised  he was not feeling tired at all.

“I’d get up in the morning, 6 o’clock we used to start, and we used to end walking around 7.30-8 in the evening. I was like it is very strange that I’m not feeling tired at all. Then I started asking people around if they are feeling tired. They said no they are not. I started to think about it and I realised that actually it was not us that was walking, it was India walking with us. And the large mass of people who were coming… all religion, all communities, kids… they were creating an atmosphere of love and affection… that nobody was feeling tired. All were walking together, and helping each other. And that’s where we came up with the idea: Nafrat ki bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan kholi ,” he told the Indian community attending the programme that itself was named ‘Mohabbat ki Dukaan’.

Gandhi also went on to say that Bharat Jodo Yatra is not about knitting the geographical area that India covers, “Bharat Jodo Yatra is in your hearts.” Underlining that Bharat Jodo is about respecting all religions, and peaceful coexistence, he said, “If one studies history, it can be seen that all spiritual leaders — including Guru Nanak Dev ji, Guru Basavanna ji, Narayana Guru ji — united the nation in a similar way,” he said.

He said India is not what one can see in the media which is up to promoting a political narrative that is far from reality.  Asserting that there is a “huge distortion”, Gandhi said “It was very clear to me in the Yatra that it’s in the media’s interest to project these things, it helps the BJP. So, don’t think that everything you see in the media is the truth.”

He said all the great leaders in India had always emphasised that nobody should be under an impression that he or she knows everything. “Leaders like Guru Nanak Ji, Basavanna ji, Gandhi ji emphasised not to be under the impression that you everything. That the world is too big, too complicated for any one person to think that he understands everything and he knows everything, ” he said.

Terming it a disease, Gandhi said: “That is the disease… that we have a group of people in India who are absolutely convinced that they know everything. In fact, I think may be they think they even know more than God. They can sit down and have a conversation and explain to him, you know, about what is going on. And of course, our prime minister is one such specimen.”

“I think if you sat Modiji down next to God, Modiji would start explaining to God how the universe works. And God would get confused that what have I created,” Gandhi said evoking laughter from the audience.

He said this sounds funny but there are some people in India who can explain “science to the scientists, history to the historians, warfare to the Army, flying to the airforce”. “And at the heart of it is mediocrity, that they actually don’t understand anything,” he opined.